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Orrick's Financial Industry Week in Review - May 13, 2013

In This Issue: FHFA Limit on Fannie and Freddie Loan Purchases to Qualified Mortgage; Rating Agency Developments; MBIA and Bank of America Settle MBS Litigation for $1.7 Billion: Assured and UBS Agree to Settle RMBS...more

Bank of America Settles Class Action Brought By Mortgage Investors

Bank of America has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by investors who claimed they were misled by its Countrywide unit into buying risky mortgage securities. Bank of America acquired Countrywide Financial, a...more

New York State Court Dismisses RMBS Fraud Suit Against UBS

On April 5, New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich dismissed with prejudice a suit brought by six Loreley Financing entities against various UBS entities. Loreley alleged fraud stemming from UBS’s issuance of...more

Court Denies Goldman Sachs’s Motion to Dismiss RMBS Action Brought by Prudential

On April 9, Judge Susan Wigenton of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey denied Goldman Sachs’s motion to dismiss Prudential’s complaint alleging fraud in connection with the sale of $375 million in RMBS. ...more

Two Federal Courts Hold Government MBS Claims Were Untimely

On April 9, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed claims brought by the FDIC as receiver for a failed bank against a financial institution related to 10 MBS certificates sold to the bank,...more

TBTF Servicing: Another Issue for Originators to Consider

As widely reported recently, close to 1.2 million borrowers (about 30% of the more than 3.9 million households that faced foreclosure proceedings by the 11 leading financial institutions in 2009 and 2010), had to battle...more

Federal Judge Dismisses FDIC’s Securities Fraud Claims Against Countrywide

On April 8, U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer of the Central District of California dismissed the FDIC’s suit against Countrywide. FDIC, as the receiver for Colonial Bank, filed suit against Countrywide and Bank of...more

Second Circuit Allows FHFA MBS Suits To Proceed

On April 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a district court’s partial denial of a financial institution’s motion to dismiss on standing and timeliness grounds a suit brought by the FHFA. Fed. Hous....more

Federal Government Civil Fraud Suit Targets Mortgage Lender And Its President

On April 4, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and HUD officials announced a civil fraud suit alleging FCA and FIRREA claims against a mortgage lender and its president for falsely certifying loans and...more

NCUA Announces Pre-Litigation MBS Settlement

On April 2, the NCUA announced that a financial institution agreed to settle allegations related to mortgage-backed securities issued to certain corporate credit unions. The NCUA has alleged on behalf of failed corporate...more

Court Denies in Part Motions to Dismiss FHFA’s Claims Against Countrywide and Various Underwriters

On March 15, Judge Mariana Pfaelzer of the United States District Court for the Central District of California denied in part motions to dismiss brought by Countrywide, various individuals and various underwriters in...more

New York Obtains Major Lender-Placed Insurance Settlement

On March 21, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) announced that it obtained a settlement from a major lender-placed insurer to resolve an investigation into the company’s practices. According to the DFS, the...more

Freddie Mac Files Suit Over Losses Due To Alleged LIBOR Manipulation

On March 14, Freddie Mac sued 15 banks and the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), claiming that the institutions manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and caused substantial losses to Freddie Mac on...more

A Breach Of A Fiduciary Duty Claim May Be Waived

A dispute arose between Band and Libby regarding the development and construction of a luxury condominium. Band, the managing general partner of the development and an attorney, contacted Libby to invite him to become an...more

Cleveland v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., 2013-Ohio-1035

Journal Entry and Opinion

Dismissal for failure to state a claim, Civ.R. 12 (B)(6), of Cleveland's action for public nuisance and Ohio RICO against financial institutions involved in the creation of mortgage-backed securities using subprime mortgages...more

Investor Files Suit Against Nationstar Over Mortgage Auctions

On March 7, KIRP, LLC sued Texas-based mortgage servicer Nationstar Mortgage LLC in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in connection with Nationstar’s alleged improper conduct in servicing mortgage loans that are...more

Mere Recording Of Deed Does Not Commence Four Year Statute Of Limitations On Fraudulent Conveyance [Florida]

Under fraudulent conveyance law, a creditor of a debtor can reach property of the debtor that the debtor transferred to third parties if the transfer is a fraudulent conveyance. However, Fla.Stats. §726.110(1) provides that...more

Bank of America Settlement in Jeopardy?

Bank of America’s $8.5 billion settlement in 2011 to resolve claims over Countrywide’s mortgage abuses may be in jeopardy. Last week, a group of investors, the Triaxx funds and the Federal Home Loan Banks of Boston,...more

Israeli Bank Sues UBS and Goldman Sachs Seeking a Combined $220 Million

On January 29, Bank Hapoalim B.M., Israel’s largest bank, filed summonses with notice against UBS AG, Goldman Sachs & Co., and their affiliates, in the Supreme Court for the State of New York....more

Impac Settles RMBS Suit Brought by Citigroup for $3.1 Million

On January 24, Impac Funding Corp. settled a lawsuit brought by Citigroup Global Markets Inc. alleging violations of Sections 18 and 20 of the Securities Exchange Act and negligent misrepresentation based on alleged...more

Orrick's Financial Industry Week in Review - February 4, 2013

In This Issue: *Financial Industry Developments - SEC Extends Exemptions for Security-Based Swaps - Fed Announces Release Dates for Results of Supervisory Stress Tests and CCAR - Rating Agency Developments...more

NCUA Files Another Major MBS Suit

On January 4, the NCUA announced another major mortgage-backed securities lawsuit. Similar to prior suits, the NCUA alleges on behalf of three insolvent corporate credit unions that a mortgage securitizer violated federal and...more

National Credit Union Administration Sues Bear Stearns for $3.6 Billion in RMBS

On December 17, 2012, the National Credit Union Administration Board, acting in its capacity as liquidating agent for four failed credit unions, sued several Bear Stearns affiliates in federal court in Kansas in connection...more

Mortgage Foreclosure Settlement

We have long been skeptical of most loan “repurchase” or “indemnification” demands made by big banks against the third-party originators (i.e., correspondent lenders) who sold those loans to the big banks many years ago....more

FDIC Obtains Jury Verdict And Settlement In Separate Actions In California District Court Against Former Bank Officers And...

On December 7, the FDIC, as receiver of a failed bank, obtained a jury verdict in its favor in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against a group of former bank officers. FDIC v. Van Dellen, No....more